Saturday, October 25, 2014

Steve Jobs' Stanford Commencement Address in 2005: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Please click here for Steve Job’s commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005 where he shared 3 stories.











For your reading pleasure, the following excerpts have been highlighted:-

1. Story about Connecting the Dots
“You can’t connect all the dots (of your life) looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, … whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

2. Story about Love and Loss
“But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.”

3. Story about Death
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment of failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”



Concluding Remarks:
“Stewart (Brand) and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”



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